NYEUPE: White Beaded Doum Palm Leaf Baskets
Description
Tightly woven from the blade of doum palm leaves, these intricate yet simple baskets are produced by the Ngurunit Weavers Group. This is a collective of around 150 craftswomen – members of the Samburu and Rendille tribes – living in Northern Kenya. Farming and collecting milk are the mainstays of this Ariaal pastoralist community, and these woven baskets were originally made as vessels for collecting camel milk. Our NYEUPE baskets bring the integrity of age-old Rendille weaving to the modern home, with the addition of beautiful Samburu beading in pure, clean white.
Rendille-style basket weaving fell into swift decline with the advent of plastic and metal milk collection vessels, but in more recent years these baskets have seen a surge in demand. With the addition of Samburu-inspired beading, function meets form in these palm leaf baskets which have become popular accessories for the home. Use yours as a planter or fruit bowl, flower pot, desk tidy or jewellery basket.
You help keep this wonderful art form alive when you purchase one of our palm leaf baskets. You also become an important part of our journey, empowering these talented weavers through fair trade and flexible work. Each basket is supplied with a thank you card from the cooperative: you can meet the ladies behind your basket HERE.
MATERIAL: Doum Palm Leaf
DIMENSIONS:
Mini: 8-9cm DIA x 8-9cm H
Small: 9-10cm DIA x 9-10cm H
Midi: 12-14cm DIA x 9-10cm H
FAIR TRADE & HANDMADE IN KENYA
Our journey into sustainable style began in Kenya, and the lion’s share of our woven baskets are Kenyan-made. Whilst every region of Kenya boasts its own rich natural bounty, each cooperative we partner with offers expertise in its own unique form of basketry. Weaving, dyeing and grass-rolling techniques differ across the regions as much as basket shapes, patterns and structures. These precious crafts are woven through the generations within families - passed along continuous thread from mother to daughter - protecting and preserving an art form as old as man.
Vast and colourful, vibrant and bursting with natural beauty and style, our fair trade baskets are as eclectic as their homeland and its people. From sisal grass to doum palm, banana leaf fibres to palm leaf, each weaving cooperative works with what is locally available and only what can be sustainably sourced, to produce beautiful baskets which are 100% Kenyan made, and ethically produced. All cow hide bag tags, straps, and basket labels are made from leather sourced as a by-product of the food industry. Natural dyes come from pounded roots, bark and vegetables of the region, whilst all synthetic dyes are sustainably sourced.
From the Kamba tribe to the camel-herding Ariaal pastoralists of Northern Kenya, you can read more about the lives of the Kenyan weavers we work with - and the wonderful baskets they produce - below.
